Skinny Love
by TheBoyWithTheSnares
Summary: When had Katniss' and Gale's relationship become a tragic skinny love?


**A/N: Just a quick one-shot! NO SCHOOL THURSDAY & FRIDAY! It's Thanksgiving weekend! :) My birthday is on the 25th too! But I'm sick. UGH. :(**

***For enhanced reading, listen to Skinny Love by Birdy while reading! But not too loud..just as background music! :)***

"Bye honey." Peeta kissed Katniss on the cheek and left.

Katniss stood at the door, watching his retreating figure. She sighed and closed the door.

Katniss went upstairs to check on their first child, a little baby girl named Bryony. She was four years old. Bryony was sleeping soundly in her tiny little bed.

Katniss silently exited the child's room and walked to Peeta's and her bedroom and pulled out a dusty thick book from the back of her closet. She carried it down to the living room and pulled open the curtains, then settling down on the couch. She held up the book and blew on it. Dust particles filled the air and she coughed.

Then Katniss dropped the book on her lap. Was she ready to open this book of memories? It hadn't been opened since Gale had given it to her, right before he left for District 2.

Back then, when she was just a girl living in District 12, ruled over by the Capitol.

Before Peeta and the 74th Hunger Games.

Before...he...Gale...left, she painfully remembered. Gale. He was a distant memory. Left behind in her painful past, along with Prim.

Katniss carefully lifted the cover of the thick book. She tentatively read the title page.

It said:

...

For You Katniss

With All My Love

Gale

...

With all his love. Reading that line sent a throbbing pang of hurt through her body, through her heart. Gale. Katniss took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and slowly flipped to the next page.

She braced herself for whatever would be there. She hesitantly opened her eyes. A letter. It was a letter.

...

_Dear Katniss,_

_I don't know how to begin. When did I begin loving you? I think it was since I met you. I just didn't realize it until it was too late. Hell, you might never crack open this book. But if you are reading this right now - listen to me. I meant it when I said that I loved you. I still do now. We had so much going for us. We had our family, and we had each other. I wish you would have listened to me. I wish you would have understood. There is still so much unfinished business between you and I. I want you to know that no matter what, I will always love you. I hope someday we could just be friends again._

_Love,_

_Gale_

...

Katniss gasped then clamped a hand over her mouth, as to hold back the sobs threatening to come out. Tears welled up in her eyes.

She flipped on to the next page. Taped to the page was a feather. Scrawled underneath that feather read a caption: _That weird bird we shot together. We had so much fun._

Katniss moved on to the next page. And the next. And the next. The whole book was filled with scraps and pieces of memories that she and Gale had had together. One page held a piece of blue fabric that she had worn that fateful reaping day. She never knew where it went, but a scrap was held in there. The label read: _You looked beautiful that day. _A drop fell onto the paper, staining it with a dark mark.

Katniss kept rifling through the book. She came across another page that contained a pink ribbon. The words written said: _When we bought Lady, you were arguing with the goat man. You were so beautiful, so fierce._

And so her tears kept dripping. They coursed down her face in long streaks. Katniss was broken. When had it all gone wrong? Why did it all go wrong? Why did it have to be Gale?

Katniss lifted her head when she heard a small squeak around the staircase. A small frightened face peered around the edge. "Bryony?"

Bryony slowly tottered over to her mother. "Mommy? Why are you crying?" She patted Katniss' face.

Katniss tried to force a smile on her face unsuccessfully. "It's nothing, Bree-bree. Go back to bed, okay?"

Bryony nodded sagely. "Okay, Mommy." She tiptoed and kissed her mother on the cheek before bounding back up the stairs.

Katniss turned her attention back to the book and flipped through the book once more. "Oh Gale."

Katniss painfully forced herself to admit to herself what she had been suppressing all along. "I love you too, Gale."

She realized she had been living a lie. She had lied to Peeta and the world. But most importantly, she had lied to herself, and Gale, who suffered as well.

And so, Katniss Everdeen was lost.

She faked her life, faked loving Peeta, faked everything.

Because of her mistake, Katniss Everdeen suffered for the rest of her life.

**FIN.**

**A/N: Depressing, but I was in the mood...review? :D**


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